FINAL REPORT Pieve Tesino, Italy, 22 - 24 September 2015 EUROPEAN FORESTRY COMMISSION Working Party on the Management of Mountain Watersheds Thirtieth session FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS Rome, 2015 1 INTRODUCTION 1. The 30th Session of the European Forestry Commission Working Party on the Management of Mountain Watersheds (EFC WPMMW) was held in Pieve Tesino, Italy. The session was held 22- 24 of September 2015 and was jointly organized by the European Forest Institute (EFI) Project Centre on Mountain Forests (MOUNTFOR), the Autonomous Province of Trento (Italy), and FAO. The main topic under discussion during the seminar and of the national reports was “Mountain Watersheds and Ecosystem Services: - Balancing multiple demands of forest management in head-watersheds”. The agenda and the session programme are presented in ANNEX A. 2. On 23 September 2015 the hosts of the session organized a study tour. 3. The session was attended by delegates, lecturers and observers from the following countries and international organizations: Australia, Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Italy, Japan, Poland, Spain, Romania and Switzerland, International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), Alpine Convention, FAO sub regional office for central Asia and FAO. The list of participants can be found in ANNEX B. OPENING OF THE SESSION 4. Welcoming words were delivered by Giuseppe SCARASCIA MUGNOZZA (Tuscia University), Roberto TOGNETTI (University of Molise), Alessandro RUGGIERI (Tuscia University), Gernot FIEBIGER (on behalf of IUFRO), Chiara AVANZO (Region of Trento), Olivier MARCO (Chair of the Working Party), and Antonio BALLARIN DENTI (Catholic University of Brescia). The speakers welcomed the participants on behalf of the institutions they represented. Giuseppe SCARASCIA thanked the organizers and FAO for accepting the invitation to the research centre in Pieve Tesino and explained the organizational structure of this centre. The speakers underlined that sustainable management of watersheds and mountain forests is key to sustainable development and the provision of ecosystem services. Further, the good cooperation between the universities and the region, especially related to the MOUNTFOR research centre was highlighted. Finally, the speakers wished for an interesting and successful session. 5. Antonio BALLARIN DENTI representing Paolo ANGELINI, Head of the Italian delegation to the Alpine Convention, introduced the stakeholder training dialogue that was organized in cooperation with the Alpine Convention. He underlined that the Italian Ministry for the Environment, Land and Sea appreciated the organization and that stakeholders are drivers for launching a new complementary bottom-up approach. He highlighted that knowledge brokerage is a new method in policy making and - on behalf of the Italian Ministry for the Environment - he wished a successful meeting and a nice stay in the region. ADOPTION OF THE AGENDA 6. The agenda was discussed and adopted. It is presented in ANNEX A. REPORT ON INTER-SESSIONAL ACTIVITIES FOLLOWING THE 29TH SESSION 1 2 7. Thomas HOFER (Secretariat of the EFC WPMMW) introduced the Working Party and reported on the inter-sessional activities conducted during the period between the two sessions. The members of the WP are officially designated by the respective governments of the member countries of the EFC. A new Governance and Strategy was approved by the Steering Committee in 2015. The following main changes were highlighted by Thomas HOFER: o framed by the vision of the Working Party to promote sustainable development in mountain watersheds with a view to enhance resilience to climate change and natural disasters and to ensure the long-term provision of environmental services by watersheds for both upstream and downstream areas” o Regional or thematic Working Groups form the main implementation mechanism to fulfill the mission of the WPMMW and to satisfy the different needs and priorities within the European region. o The newsletter and the website form the pillars of the communication of the WPMMW. Activities that took place since the 29th session in France: o European Forest Week was held from 9-13 December 2013 in Rovaniemi, Finland. At this meeting the suggestion to prepare a new Governance and Strategy was endorsed by the EFC. o Annual Steering Committee meetings were held in 2014 in Rome, Italy and in 2015 in Annecy, France. o Formulation and approval of Governance and Strategy in spring 2015 by the Steering Committee. o Establishment of two Working Groups: Forest & Water and Hazard and Disaster Risk Management in Mountains. o Revision of the homepage; preparation of the 30th session. Working Group 1 Forest & Water: o Project proposal ECORES for Horizon 2020 o COST action o Lots of involvement and initiatives in the countries of the Working Group on Forest & Water o Planned side event with Silvamed at 3rd European Forest week in November in Engelberg, Switzerland. Working Group 2 Hazard and Disaster Risk Management in Mountains: o Workshop for practitioners. o FAO Workshop in Bosnia and Herzegovina on Event documentation and hazard zone mapping for efficient prevention work with a special consideration of forests. o Potential contribution to a FAO project on Disaster Risk Management in the Western Balkans. 2 3 Preparations for the 30th session: a. Session planning with the Italian hosts, Steering Committee and Alpine Convention; b. Invitation to countries via national heads of Forest Services (EFC members); c. Follow up with countries; d. Coordination with Italian hosts. TECHNICAL SESSION: BALANCING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN HEAD WATERSHEDS 8. Marika FERRARI and Roberto COALI, Service of Torrent Control of the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy, presented “Flood management on small alpine basins: the current approach of the Autonomous Province of Trento. The presentation focused on the balance of hazard security from flood/debris flows events and water quality service. Trento is a region in the north of Italy where there are approximately 16 000 watersheds and hence multiple ecosystem services. These are mainly classified in: food supply, raw material supply, energy supply, water supply, water cycle regulation, atmosphere components regulation, natural hazard regulation, opportunities for tourism, and opportunities for recreational activities. Ecosystem Services comprise supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services and forests contribute to all these categories. The services provided by forests in head watersheds range, among others, from erosion control, clean water to biodiversity and recreation. These multiple roles and the high sensitivity of head watersheds to environmental and socioeconomic changes encompass the need of balancing the different demands on forests by sustainable forest management. It is necessary to try to establish dialogue with inhabitants so that they understand this situation and also know about the existing risks. The actual flood management strategy of the Torrent Control Service is based on three strategic lines: ensuring watershed stability, ensuring safety conditions for inhabitants and dialogue on hazard. It is expected by the population and EC to develop different activities and technologies to maintain the activities more natural, e.g. morphological restoration. Regarding the payments private companies are involved but most of the work is done by public administration and partly by private companies. Concerning the interaction with the forest service: one part is forest management and collaboration when e.g. creating protection structures within forests. Due to the fact that forest road construction is not done anymore by the forest service itself, the collaboration of relevant actors needs to be improved. 9. Marco CIOLLI and Maria Giulia CANTIANI, University of Trento, Italy, presented “DDS, ESS and participation method in planning: experiences and lessons learned” The ecosystem services (ESS) concept is particularly helpful when dealing with the relationship that links human and natural environment systems. It refers, to the entire sphere of benefits (goods and services) that human societies obtain, directly or indirectly, from ecosystems functions, and shows how deeply human well-being depends on healthy ecosystems. 3 4 Alpine landscapes supply numerous goods and services useful for people living there and in surrounding areas. A sustainable development of these territories requires that economic and ecological issues are carefully taken into account and balanced. To this aim, the consideration of ESS is a tool showing great potential, provided that it is applied to the right scale of analysis. The regional watershed scale makes it possible to address landscape management and planning issues with a sound and realistic approach. A methodological approach, applied in different study areas and based on the realization and implementation of a Decision Support System for eliciting, evaluating in a spatially explicit form and balancing ESS is described. The work describes the experiences carried out in the development and the application of DSS and participation methods in planning in real cases in the frame of different national (Biomasfor) and European (recharge.green see Recharge.green project site: http://www.recharge-green.eu/) research projects. The different projects offered the possibility to test different approaches and to develop, test and improve a dedicated Open Source DSS software (r.green)